Monday, November 11, 2013

Four Poems (Rich Murphy)

“That's
where the economic and political empowerment of the developing world--the ‘rise
of the rest’ as I call it--comes in, . . . .”
Fareed Zackaria

Pitched
until the mantle collapsed,

the
two trophies disappeared beneath

jet
engines and 3000 bodies.

iPhones
in hands, “Why me?”

stepped
from taxi cabs in suits

and
shoes that shine. In league,

the
world without a New York City

suffered
schadenfreude in the dark.

Team
America cried foul, and alarmed

referees
chased the remote control pilot

and
the drones into caves. A decade

later,
bronze testicles wreathing

Wall
Street melted into tears

for
the taxpayer robbed by bankers,

and
Asia jumped the starter gun

when
airlifted cash on pallets landed

a
baton. A relay circles the Earth.

The
rest that rises in steel

and
glass sees nothing to learn;

the
sun casts light just so.

Western
State Penitentiary

Entering
the prison yard

by
way of the womb

and
leaving only as the fertilizer

for
another civilization, first

the
inmate toddles the grounds,

Columbus,
Magellan.

He
conquers his mother’s reach

and
his father’s nature,

while
planting his standard in the hands

of
convicted murderers and rapists.

To
ease his Atlas shoulders,

the
natives prod him to where

the
birds soar above a hut:

He
has since flapped his arms

to
the thought of freedom.

Leading
his private expeditions

to
death’s wall and to the curly locks

of
the electrified mob,

he
returns to the promises

iron
balls deeded in the dust,

to
the gates from which he came.

In
the body salt on the grounds

beneath
him, he tangles his feet

in
longitude and latitude

so
that he may eat where beyond

the
topsoil traps for millennia

captured
claws and paws.

Upon
the mesh of rooted bones

he
lumps himself, a stone

for
crows, exotic dreams, and crimes

that
only demise forgives.

Sulphur River
Review
88

Anthem

From
the mountains of wheat

to
unmined coasts of milk and money

thoughts
are empty of wailing bellies.

The
air is grimy with snacks and booze

on
the fat that belches townhouse and ranch

and
movement cripples a creeping hand

while
rocketing chains and expensive pain.

Among
cropless bowls and wilting bodies

wall-to-wall
living rooms a moment away are dragged

but
not a kernel is shaken from wallpaper eyelids

left
with magazine pinups selling soap.

In
the churches of cones, gingerbread, and beans

the
dieting and lonely gathering mid-week

cover
their mouths with bored hands

and
cups of decaf coffee.

Grand Street 86

City
Welfare

The
sky is threadbare these mornings.

When
the horizons are put on,

the
sun is out at the elbows.

Patches
of haze, dirtying,

wrinkling
the fabric of everything,

tear
at hearts, the cowhides till pennies tinkle

down
streets to save undeveloped land

of
millionaires. When the occupants of the planet are

at
their brightest and buildings

are
hunching, everyone thanks each other

for
their contribution.

Then
the civilization exposes itself

to
the evening wind, and vagrant shreds

of
blue and gold are blown

like
kisses around city squares.

New Letters 84

"World Series” is a
poem from my collection Americana, forthcoming in 2014 from Press Americana.
It is not about the Boston Red Sox, but an accounting of the fear of the international and economic threats that has taken hold in this country since 9/11, and that has made the idea of a post-American world possible. The fear instilled by Islamic terrorists was used to advantage by the Bush administration to cow the American population. To this day, workers don’t have time to be furious with government or banks or at having been duped by the economic elite. People are working two and three jobs to keep what they haven’t lost already. The lure into consumerism in the 1990s was countered with the fear of international terrorism and the terror of debt. A large segment of the population is as easy to manipulate as FOX News wishes. The poem "World Series" was composed after the manuscript was announced the winner of the Americana Prize, specifically for this book and brings the collection current.
The other work in Americana spans decades of writing, mostly dating from the 1980s, a handful from the 70s. In 1980, I embarked on two projects. The first was to write poems that were “snapshots” of Americana: Diners (what was left of them), gas stations, automobiles, tenements, strip malls, etc. The second project was to explore whether Arnold Toynbee’s assertion that civilizations become so when they meet challenges with a successful responses. Since then, the collections came together and as a whole explores culture in America with Arnold Toynbee’s theory in mind, reminding us that we are already living in the “post-American world,” a time for the “rise of the rest” as Fareed Zackaria has phrased it. It seems to me to represent Americana as an artifact. [Among Rich Murphy's previous books, Voyeuris the winner of the 2008 Gival Press Poetry Award.]